


The People That Walked in Darkness

by Elizabeth (anghraine)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Brother-Sister Relationship, Dark Character, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Loyalty, One Shot, Prompt Fic, Twins, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-11
Updated: 2012-03-11
Packaged: 2017-11-01 18:53:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anghraine/pseuds/Elizabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leia turns to the Dark Side; Luke doesn't, and like his parents before him, is forced to choose between his principles and his family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The People That Walked in Darkness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chameleon-irony](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=chameleon-irony).



Sometimes, Luke wondered what would have happened if he had seen Leia's face inside their father's helmet, and not his own? _He_ wasn't the one who'd become a Sith.  
  
Not quite.  
  
His mind constantly went back to that last choice, the choice that had been no choice, and his sister's fingers closing around his.  
  
"You don't need to run away," Leia whispered. "We can bring peace to everyone, Luke. I'm more powerful than Vader, I know I am, and you -- together nothing could stop us. We can overthrow them, make the galaxy the way it should be."  
  
He stared at her. Even without some more obvious truth, he knew what it meant. She’d turned, but not to the Emperor, to--herself?  
  
She sounded like their father, but she was only saying things that Luke, himself, had thought more than once. And she sounded like Leia, too, fearless, fierce, a little ruthless in her desire to set everything right, but still _Leia._  
  
Obi-Wan and Yoda would say she wasn’t. They’d say Leia was as good as dead, and the woman before him, a villainess entirely separate from her. Someone else, something else, an unholy abomination within a Leia-shaped shell. They’d tell him he had to murder his sister as well as his father.  
  
No. He couldn’t even kill Vader, the absent father who had sliced off his hand. Who had acknowledged him without any of Obi-Wan’s involved arguments. _I am your father._ No separate villain-self, no hesitation, just a simple undivided _I_. He might as well have said _I am Anakin Skywalker_ ; it meant the same thing. He was Luke’s father, and Luke wouldn’t, couldn’t kill him.  
  
But Leia--  
  
 _You’re my best friend_ , she once told him, perfectly matter-of-fact. Where anyone else would have heard rejection, Luke heard validation. He’d spent his whole life feeling as if part of himself were lost and could never be recovered, until the moment he saw Leia in the hologram. As long as they were together, he didn’t care what else happened.  
  
Kissing didn’t feel right. Running hand-in-hand down a hallway while stormtroopers shot at them did.  
  
Over the years, they’d fought together, run together, flown together, practiced shooting together, shouted at incompetents together. Together they’d risked their lives, and together they'd thrown snowballs on Hoth. They’d talked deep into the night: about politics, about the future, about their murdered families, about their awful, shared birthday; and on one not-entirely-sober occasion, about why his yellow coat and her hair-buns were _brilliant_ ideas.  
  
He never much cared what she did with Han, and he’d been thrilled to discover she was his sister. Of course she was his sister. And if she were not his entire world, she certainly occupied a good portion of it. More than he did himself, or Han, or the squadron, or all the rest of the Rebellion.  
  
Luke swallowed. “I won’t turn,” he said.  
  
Her eyebrows drew together, the eyes beneath them narrowing.  
  
“And I won’t abandon you.”  
  
Leia’s eyes went wide again. “What do you mean?”  
  
“I love you,” he said helplessly. “More than anything. I’ll go where you go.”  
  
She smiled--the old beaming smile he hadn’t seen since before Hoth.  
  
“I love you too. I think I’ve always known you were my brother,” Leia said. As if in benediction, she pressed her lips against his forehead. “I hoped you wouldn’t betray me.”  
  
“I’d die first.”  
  
“You won’t die, Luke. I won’t let you,” she said, still smiling. “You’re my brother--my twin. We _should_ face them together. We just have to think it out a little. But everything’s going to be fine, I promise.” A flicker of doubt clouded her face. “ _You_ won’t leave me?”  
  
Luke didn’t dare ask.  
  
“Never,” he said.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my lj meme; the prompt was _even your darkness shall be treasured then._ The title is, of course, from _The Messiah._


End file.
